The field of the present disclosure relates generally to mobile computing devices and, more specifically, to hardware that facilitates increasing the functionality of a mobile computing device.
Mobile computing devices, such as smartphones, cellular phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), have grown in use and popularity among a variety of different types of users. At least some known mobile computing devices use a cable medium to transfer data between the mobile computing device and other electronic devices. Generally, connectors that are coupled to opposing ends of the cable medium and docking ports defined in the mobile computing device support predetermined standard protocols that enable data to be transferred therebetween. More specifically, the connectors and docking ports include a pinout that is arranged in a predetermined configuration to support the standard protocols. Exemplary standard protocols include universal serial bus (USB), firewire (IEEE 1394), high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), DisplayPort (e.g., 2-Lane and 4-Lane), and portable digital media interface (PDMI).
The functionality of at least some known mobile computing devices is based at least partially on the amount and types of docking ports included in the mobile computing device. For example, a mobile computing device will generally have a dedicated USB docking port and a dedicated HDMI docking port to support USB and HDMI functionality. Further, at least some known docking ports support multiple functionalities. For example, a docking port that supports the PDMI standard protocol has both 2-Lane DisplayPort and USB functionality. Increasing the functionality of a mobile computing device is becoming increasingly important to those in the electronics industry. As such, it may be desirable to modify the pinout configuration of an existing docking port to facilitate increasing the functionality of a mobile computing device.